"This is Corporal Lopez," Valentine said, bringing forward the noncom after he gave his words a moment to sink in. "Any of you who want to take us up on the offer of a fresh start, just speak to him. Again, we're not threatening you with anything if you don't stand up. We leave that to the Kurians. Maybe you've got family back in the KZ, I don't know. Choice is yours, but make up your minds fast-we're in a hurry."
Valentine walked over to the sliding doors to the main aisle of the warehouse. One of the advantages of higher rank was the ability to stand around where and when you chose, just observing. He looked at the carts going out to the pickups and vans, rattling out their machine-gun-fire exhaust through straight pipes. Sacks of rice, cases of ham, tins of butter, dehydrated fruit, cotton balls and motor-oil... His real intent was to get a read on the faces, especially Xray-Tango, who had sat through his lecture in contemptuous silence. If anyone had his neck in a noose, it was he.
Xray-Tango remained seated, holding a washcloth to the side of his head.
Only three volunteers stood up to join Lopez. Valentine wondered if they knew something he didn't.
* * * *
Two men, both POWs of Beck's, were wounded by long-range fire while the second train was being loaded. Valentine sent Nail and his Bears out to find the snipers, but they returned to report they'd shot and run.
There was only one company left, spaced out wide to cover the roads, rail platform, warehouses and dock. They knew they had to pull back and get across the river when Valentine's flare went up, or dawn, whichever came first. Valentine was watching the road leading to the Kurian Tower, where the remaining flames of Xray-Tango's headquarters gave him a good view of me road. The road wasn't concerning Valentine; what was approaching on it had him worried.
"Armored cars," Valentine said. "Snowplows, I think. Two of them. Pickups behind, double axles with light armor tacked on."
"Snowplows" was Southern Command shorthand for long, heavy armored cars with pointed prows for pushing through roadblocks. Armored cupolas with machine guns, or sometimes a 20mm gun nicknamed a "Bushwhacker" stood high and gave the gunner a towerlike view. They were built on the skeletons of garbage-truck-sized vehicles.
"They're in for a shock," Nail said.
"As long as our heavy-weapons guys know what they're doing."
"Two minutes," Valentine said. "I'll be right back."
Valentine gave his men, squatting next to their stovepipelike recoilless rifles, a thumbs-up and ran back to the train platform.
"Styachowski! Roll, roll, have everything roll!"
She nodded and signaled to the man working the engine, a Quisling officer's machine gun bumping at her hip. A soldier helped her into the back boxcar. "The rest of you, fall back to the barge. The barge! Follow the women!"
Styachowski had used the female POWs after all. They stood along the road holding emergency candles. The lights weren't bright enough to be seen by the distant snipers, let alone the mortars on Pulaski Heights, especially with the warehouses beginning to burn. The men began to pull out, some carrying a last load between them, guided to safety by the candle-holding women.
Valentine pulled the flare gun from his shoulder bag and broke it open. He fired it. Before its parachute opened, he was already running back to the Bears. He glanced up and the white glare traced an angry scrawl on his retinas.
"Here they come!" Nail called, the growl of motors growing louder. Valentine could see the turreted tops of the armored cars above the rubble, coming toward them like the dorsal fin of an attacking shark. The Bears had arranged rubble to cover their heads and shoulders.
Valentine joined one of the teams with the light artillery. A box of forearm-sized shells was laid out, ready for loading, and a soldier knelt next to the tube, looking down a crosshairs bracket as he adjusted the barrel with levers.
"Let them have it as soon as you can," he told the gunner.
"Yes, Colonel," the man said. "Err ... Cap-"
"Don't worry about it. Just put a shell into them."
The first armored car rounded the corner, the pointed prow on it filling the street.
"Clear!" the gunner yelled, but the other two in the crew were already well away from the back of the weapon.
It fired with a whoosh, more like a rocket than a shell. The backblast kicked up a shroud of dust, blinding Valentine for a moment. He heard an explosion somewhere down the road. The loaders opened the crossbars at the back and slid in a brassy new shell.
Valentine heard the Bears shooting. The front snowplow had been stopped, and smoke poured from the front. It was firing back; tracers arced from the turret, their brightness leaving strange echoes on his retinas. He saw vague shapes of troops exiting the armored car behind it before the recoilless rifle fired again.
"That's it. Wreck the tube," Valentine said.
"One more shell, sir," the gunner said, as the others loaded.
"Shoot and fall back." He raised his voice. "Nail, get out of it!"
More tracer streaks lit up the street. The gunner fired again, blindly. Valentine waited to see Nail and his Bears run for the burning warehouses, and pulled the gunner out by his collar. The loaders put another shell in the tube, and placed the spares beneath its massive tripod.